


Grind City

by thorhugs



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bar fights, Best Friends, Bisexual Male Character, Emotionally Repressed, Family, Fantasy, Feedback appreciated, Found Family, Gen, It's fantasy in a modern setting sort of but it's not urban fantasy, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, Pansexual Character, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Strong Women, angry boys, emotionally stunted grown men, friends - Freeform, genres are hard, pseudo-fantasy, rough boys, skinny boys, super powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-08 07:59:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14100954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorhugs/pseuds/thorhugs
Summary: People with super powers, known as phenoms, are rather common place. While there are no sixteen year old atomic bombs, it's possible to see a shrink who can dig directly into your memories or have your yard done by someone who makes plants grown to their whims. Crawford is an inert, someone without powers, just trying to get through the day. Until he gets dragged into the underworld of the city to uncover secrets that he never wanted to know the answers to. With his best friends Jackie, the city's best unknown mechanic, and Dane, a shapeshifter working for the city's most notorious mob boss, maybe--just maybe--he'll make to through the day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very rough draft. So rough the names of a few things shift around. The city is called New Cork and New Castor, Crawford's bar changes from The Rose and Clover to The Red Clover. But I wanted post the first 5 chapters while I was working on it, just to share with folks. I'll updated once I go back and do edits. Consider this a sketch. A Work in Progress that's going to take a good long while to finish.

“All I’m saying,” the man said “Is they could take over the world. They’ve got the power to do it, they’re just too damn lazy.”

It wasn’t the first time Crawford had heard something this asinine, and it certainly would be the last. Hell, it wouldn’t even be the only time tonight. Someone getting too drunk to think straight, deciding to run their mouth on whatever popped into their heads. They weren’t all like Crawford, who much preferred less verbose means of communication when he got that drunk. Tonight, however, he was on the other side of the bar. On the last night of a ten night run, a few hours before he would be free of this place and these people for a few days. 

“Jus’ hear me out,” the guy said to no one in particular. More specifically, to Crawford because he was a captive audience even though he appeared to be addressing the wall of bottles. “You’ve got all types. It’d take jus’ a few. They could rip everything down.”

Phenoms were a preferred topic, no matter the night. For, against, or indifferent, everyone had something to say. Crawford didn’t much care either way himself, and he rather not talk about it at all. He’d rather not hear about it all, but according to his boss he wasn’t allowed to shut people up unless they were legitimately causing a problem. His boss’s idea of causing a problem, not his own.

“Get a couple of those fire starters…” the man said as he lined up three shot glasses. “And some earth shakers!” Two high balls behind the first two. “Then you get the real power. The ones that get into your heads! And the ones that see the future! Whatever they’re called!” He dropped several napkins across the bar in front of him. “Get nine or ten of them all total. They’d take over the government together!”

Phenoms. People with abilities beyond those of a normal human, or inerts as they were sometimes called. Abilities among phenoms varied as colors in a rainbow, or so they said. Even when two people presented with very similar powers, they could still manifest differently. No one really knew the reason for it, or if they did they hadn’t ever presented it in a way that Crawford understood. Or cared about. They probably covered it when he was in school, along with things like gravity and volcanoes and genetics. He didn’t need to know the details of those things to get through his day, so he didn’t really need to know how or why phenoms happened. They just were. Just like his hair was red. It just was. 

“That’s great, Lenny,” Crawford grumbled as he finished pouring someone else’s drink. “Can I get my glasses back?”

“You just don’t wanna face it! They’ve been waiting. Making us think we’re all safe.” Lenny was a middle aged man that had supposedly done some manner of hard labor in his years. Whatever it had been, Crawford had never figured out as he’d never asked and Lenny never said. He’d been unemployed the whole time Crawford had known him. The man had a jowly face, his salt and pepper stubble looking more like ash stuck to his face. 

“Oh yeah?” Crawford made no attempt to actually sound interested. “And how long have they been waiting?” He traded the short glass for a couple of crumpled bills. 

“Years!”

Crawford let out a hard sigh. Though no one could pin down precisely how long phenoms had been around, it was measured in centuries, not individual years. Some theories said that the miracles and events of legend or myth were real events brought about by phenoms, though they’d been far rarer in ancient times.

“That’s it,” Crawford finally said. “I’m cutting you off.”

“You just don’t like hearing the truth!”

“I don’t like your truth, Lenny. Now are you gonna pay your tab and do I have to frisk you for your wallet. Again.” Granted, the last time was because Lenny had fallen asleep on the bar before he could pay for the night. 

“You’ll see! You’ll all see!” the man shouted, gesturing around the nearly empty bar with a glass that was nearly as empty. “We’ll bow before our super powered overlords before the week’s out!”

That was the last thing Crawford needed. A drunkard starting a fight over something so stupid. Would his boss count this as causing trouble? Better question: did he care?

“Especially you!” Lenny said, swinging the glass around to jam it under Crawford’s nose. “Normies like you!” Another term for people without special powers, however it carried with it a cruder connotation than inerts. “You’re the one’s that’re gonna get beaten down! Turned into—”

The glass in Lenny’s had exploded. 

It wasn’t until glass shards and drops of stale beer splashed across Crawford’s face that he realized fury had surged inside him at Lenny’s inebriated threats. Lenny stared at his now empty hand as if he’d been holding a live grenade. Frozen between too many emotions to express any at all. 

The moment the shock passed, something colder than fury flooded through Crawford. “That’s IT!” Crawford bellowed slamming his fist down on the bar. “Lenny. You’re 86’ed. For good!” 

Lenny’s shaggy head fell back and he let out a short bark of a laugh. “You can’t kick me out. I’m…I’m an establishment!”

Letting out a growl, Crawford started moving around the bar. He would have jumped over it, just to get to Lenny faster to shut him up. But his boss didn’t like it when he left boot prints on the counter. Something about sanitary concerns. 

“I make the Rose and Clover what it is! I’m a mascot!” he was gesturing to the scant patrons, expecting them to support him. All he received in return were a few grumbles, and a raised voice telling him to sit down. That didn’t seem to deter him. “Besides, what’s a normie like you gonna do, anyway? When they come, you’re not gonna be able to do anything! That’s what you’re really scared of.”

“Don’t need to be a phenom to deal with shit,” Crawford growled as he finally stepped up to Lenny. 

When he was behind the bar, he didn’t seem like much of an imposing figure, or so he assumed. He was tall and broad, but slouched as he so typically was, people seemed to think he was far less threatening. But as he approached Lenny, he straightened his back, squaring his wide shoulders. At just over six feet tall, the older man came up about to his nose. It wasn’t just his height that made him so threatening, but his width. Unlike Lenny, who had gone soft in his years with a bulging gut brought on by a life of swilling cheap beer, Crawford was thick and solid. He looked down at Lenny, the muscles in his arms visible as his hands curled into fists at his sides. 

Lenny let out a nervous laugh, seeming to shrink down a few extra inches. “Crawford. Buddy. You know I was just—”

He reached out to pat Crawford on the shoulder, but his hand snapped up to catch Lenny by the wrist before he could make contact. He wasn’t exactly fond of being touched in general, especially by people who apparently could explode glass with a touch. 

“You were just leaving,” Crawford growled. He shifted his grip to Lenny’s shirt, pulling him up onto his toes. “And if I see your face around here again, I’ll break it. DO you understand?”

A light finally went on behind those dull, brown eyes. “Hey. Hey! You don’t have to do this. I was just talkin’. You know how I get. Excitable. That’s me! Give me another chance, will ya?”

“We’ve given you more than your share of chances, Lenny.” Crawford started shoving him toward the door. “Remember the chair last month? And the table a week before? The window last winter…” The furniture involved the man standing on them for one reason or another. The window was still a mystery, having shattered while Lenny was on the other side of the room. The going theory was that he’d thrown something. “Go be someone else’s mascot.”

“It’s not so easy as that!” Lenny protested as Crawford stopped to open the door. He knew exactly why. Lenny had been tossed out of nearly every dive bar in the neighborhood and he couldn’t afford the trendier places. 

“Not my problem,” Crawford hissed as he yanked the door open.

Before Lenny could get another word out, he shoved the drunk out onto the narrow sidewalk. He stumbled a few few steps before hooking his arm around a sign post. Part of Crawford expected the man’s forehead to meet the corner of the sign so plastered with graffiti and stickers that it was impossible to tell what it was signaling or warning. But instead Lenny lurched left and planted a hand on the flier and staple encrusted telephone pole. Crawford didn’t say a word, standing in the shallow alcove that sheltered the thick, black door to the bar and dug into the pocket of his jeans. As he pulled out a slightly battered pack of cigarettes, he watched the man. Whether he was fighting as the alcohol in his system made the world rock under his feet, or he was just trying to figure out where he was going next, Crawford didn’t care. 

Pulling his gaze away for a few moments, he tugged out one of the last cigarettes from the pack. Placing it between his lips, he searched his other pocket and came out with a small book of matches. Sulfur stung his nose as he struck the flimsy paper stick. Once the cigarette was lit and his lungs filled with burning smoke, he dropped the match to the damp sidewalk where it fizzled out. 

“Hey, can I get one of those?” Lenny asked, turning around from where he’d slung himself between post and pole. He moved toward Crawford, as if they whole thing had been forgotten, only to meet a cloud of smoke exhaled into his face. 

“I told you to go,” Crawford growled as Lenny coughed. “Now go before I throw you under the next car that comes by.”

“But—”

“Go.” Crawford pointed up the street, the cigarette between two fingers. 

Finally, Lenny grumbled something under his breath but he started walking away. Heading deeper into the scummier part of town, it seemed. Where he was less likely to be tossed out of a bar but more likely to have far worse happen for running his mouth. It didn’t matter to Crawford either way. At least now he’d have a bit of peace. 

The Rose and Clover wasn’t much, and most would say it wasn’t worth protecting. A grungy bar with a pretentious name. The Rose and Clover Irish Pub, the worn sign above the door declared it to be. Rumor was that in years past, it had actually been a decent facsimile of an Irish pub. With lamb stew on the menu and Guinness on tap. Now all the had were cheap nachos and cheaper beer. It was every bit a hole in the wall bar. It lacked what some might call curb appeal. The plain white wall had grown dingy with age, various shades of white or beige created a patch work across the lower half, where various types of graffiti had been masked over the years. Two small windows on either side of the door did little to offer an inviting presence. Neon signs glowed behind layers of the same stickers that coated the sign. Wild creatures, lewd figures, and crass words in that same illegible style as the spray painted symbols. They were also a pain in the ass to remove from glass, especially behind the iron bars bolted to the wall. 

Inside wasn’t much better. Supposedly the building was somewhere near a century old. As far as Crawford knew that just meant everything was cramped, awkward, and creaky with not enough outlets for their equipment. It was a space crammed full of tables and chairs, with two cement pillars right through the middle of the room. The bar itself filled the back wall. Which meant there was barely enough space behind it for two bartenders on a busy night, and they were always getting in each others way. Thankfully, busy nights were few and far between. They didn’t exactly draw large crowds. On one side of the bar were the bathrooms, the walls layered so thickly in marker graffiti and more of those stickers that it was impossible to tell what color the walls had been. On the other side was a door that led first to the kitchens, but then around to a pair of pool tables that were as likely as old as the building itself. 

It wasn’t much. It smelled of old beer and dry rot. The ceiling leaked when it rained, the toilets were always clogged, and the patrons were less than pleasant, but it was the most stable thing in Crawford’s life. He could always count on it being the exact same day in, day out. Besides, it was the only job he’d ever had, and he wasn’t keen on finding something else. He didn’t exactly have a broad skill set to speak of. He doubted most jobs would tolerate him telling one of the regulars to fuck off. 

Now that Lenny had fucked off, Crawford dragged open the heavy door and made his way back inside. Rick, the guy who manned the kitchen most nights was wiping up the glass from the bar. 

“I can’t believe you told Lenny off,” he said, dropping the shards in a bucket in his hand. “Pretty sure that stool’s molded to his ass.” 

“Someone else will take his place, soon enough.” Crawford had been there far longer than Rick, who’d only been there a few months. He’d lost count of how many supposedly permanent fixtures had come and gone in his time there. 

“Was he really a phenom?” Rick asked, barely masking a note of awe in his voice. 

Crawford shrugged as he rounded the bar. “Don’t care. He was a bastard, either way.” And he meant it. Crawford didn’t care much for or about phenoms, just as he didn’t care about how or why they had powers. A lot of them, however, tended to be far more trouble than any person should be. That, however, had to do more with those who flaunted what they were. As of having some special power granted them special status above everyone else. It was why the chance of someone in this bar being one seemed like an oddity. It was the same reason they didn’t get artists or college kids or accountants. This wasn’t the sort of place one came to show off or socialize. It was where people came to hide from something in a glass of bourbon.

As Crawford settled in at his post, he took down a clean glass, and poured three fingers of whiskey. It wasn’t the cheap stuff for once, so at least wasn’t acid in his throat. One of the perks of his job, he supposed. He had his pick of the top shelf as a bonus for dealing with assholes.

Light fell across the bar as the door opened, a street lamp across the street providing announcement of every person coming or going. Crawford twisted around from putting the bottle away, ready to lay into Larry for thinking he could try coming back so soon. But the silhouette in the door was no paunchy, round-shouldered man. No, instead it was a scrawny figure, all limbs and sharp angles, with hair past his chin. This was worse than Larry. This was someone he couldn’t kick out for being a nuisance. No matter how times he threw this one out, he always bounced back eventually. Dane didn’t really understand concepts like “no” or “go away.” But it was further complicated by the fact that Dane was Crawford’s oldest friend. 

As Dane bounded into the room, a few patrons shifted. Either looking away or turning toward the far too energetic man. He stood out in the dingy bar. It wasn’t just his energy, but his clothes that put a neon sign above his head. Not only did he wear jeans that were so tight they may as well have been painted on, but he also tended to wear rude and crass shirts that were more suited to a teenager’s wardrobe. Given that Dane was two years shy of thirty, it spoke a great deal toward the man’s maturity level. Today his shirt declared “For rent, by the hour.” 

“Whatever it is, no.” Crawford said as Dane’s hands planted on the bar. 

“But I—”

“No.” Crawford cut off his protest before it could get rolling. He didn’t need to know what it was to object. It was typically best to shot Dane down from the outset. His reasons for showing up rather than calling or texting never meant anything good. Calls and texts he could ignore, and this meant Dane was intent to not be ignored. And that often lead to one headache or another. If he was going to spend his day off with a blinding hangover, he was going to make it happen in the quiet of his own apartment without needing to find his way home after. “And no free drinks, either.”

“Just hear me out,” Dane said, not leaving space between the words so he could get them out before Crawford could cut him off again.

“You already know my answer.”

Dane let out a frustrated sigh. “Come on. It’s been ages since you, me and Jackie saw each other. Together I mean. Just a chill night. The three of us. I’ll bring the movie and the beer.”

Between the three of them, Dane had the largest apartment, yet he never offered it as a place for their little get togethers. Jackie, the only other friend that Crawford had, lived across the river and it rarely worked to get them all over there. Crawford had to take the train, which was a headache in itself. He could ride with Dane, but Dane was the sort of person who took things like traffic laws and speed limits as a mere suggestion. How he still had a license and a car was a mystery that had yet to be solved. That left only one option for just where Dane intended for them to all meet up. 

“No.” Crawford finally said. He turned to fill someone’s drink, not giving Dane time to reply.

Dane’s shoulders slumped, his lips pressing together. It was such a sudden shift from the way he’d practically bounced up to the bar that Crawford felt a twist in his gut. When Dane didn’t say anything in the time it took to collect the cash for the drink, that twist started to grow into something that nagged at him. Dane didn’t often ask for these little get togethers without some reason behind it. Given that he hadn’t tacked some scheme on to the invitation, the reason had to be something else. Something that Dane was likely to drop on them once they were together. 

Finally, Crawford let out a hard breath. “Fine.” He said, before holding up finger. “But not tonight. And only if Jackie agrees, too.”

Dane nodded several times, perking up immediately. “You got it! Tomorrow night! You’re not gonna regret it!” He shoved back from the bar, and ran for the door. In his wake sounded a few grumbles among the local population. But by the time the door swung shut, they’d returned to their drinks and at last some semblance of peace settled over the Rose and Clover Pub.


	2. Chapter 2

Dane didn’t waste any time heading for Jackie’s garage. He sprinted through the rain-slick streets of the city, reveling in the burn of cool night air in his lungs. But after several blocks a few facts occurred to him. First and foremost, her garage was still more than a mile away. Second, the hour. It was nearing ten at night. Even if she had worked late, she wouldn’t be there any longer. The only place he knew to find her was at her apartment, across the river. As these details slowly sank in, he slowed to a stop on the sidewalk, his paws sodden from the standing water from an earlier storm.

Yes, paws.

Dane was a phenom. A shape changer. He was sure there were official classifications for it all, but he hadn’t bothered to learn just what they were. He could turn into animals. Well, technically only one animal. A coyote. The theory was he could turn into anything, but he hadn’t exactly tried anything else. The problem was taking different shapes was hard. He had to know everything he could about the thing he was turning into. He had to understand them. The obsessions of a young teenager granted him his first shape, but he hadn’t really put in the work to master anything else. Not that he needed anything else, this one served him quite well. An excellent disguise as he was small enough to be mistaken for someone’s dog, fast enough to get him out of trouble, and a good nose to sniff out anything that needed to be found. Or things that caught his interest. Like the fact that someone in the apartments above him had ordered take out from Chang’s down on sixth. The best Chinese food in the city.

Sniffing the air, his stomach gave a loud protest. That was another thing. Changing his shape took a lot of energy. It could make him tired, or hungry, or both. But it was worth it. Running through the streets on four legs without being insulted for bumping into people, who could say no to that?

Deciding what he would do with the rest of his night, he slipped into the narrow, dumpster filled alley between apartment buildings. Even with the street so empty, he didn’t like changing out in the open. It wasn’t always a pretty sight, and it wasn’t exactly a common ability. It tended to draw the wrong kind of attention. While the change was not instantaneous, it was rather quick. Everything happening all at once, as his body rearranged itself into the proper order. He couldn’t even really explain how he made it happen, really. It was like writing his name. At first it took practice to get everything in the right order, and even longer before the e wasn’t backwards. At first it was difficult and took conscious effort, but now he barely even thought about it. He just did it. However, in place of backwards letters were his clothes. At first he couldn’t take anything with him, but now he could take anything with him that was attached to his body, as long as it wasn’t too big. Backpacks wouldn’t work, but stuff in his pockets went just as easily as the pockets themselves.

He picked himself up off the ground as his ears crawled back down his head and his tail sucked back into his spine. Both strange sensations that he’d long since grown accustomed to. From his pocket he pulled his phone and waited for it turn back on. While it made it through the transformation, something about the process always seemed to shut it off.

The moment it let him, he hit Jackie’s number.

“Come on…” he muttered to the ringing line. “Pick up…pick up…” For all he knew, she was in bed. She worked an early shift, unlike he and Crawford. And if he woke her up, she’d rip him a new one. She didn’t do well with the whole surprise wake up call in the middle of the night thing.

Five rings. Six. Shit.

“To what do I owe the honor, Mr. Jonson?” Was she being sarcastic, or was she actually chipper? Dane’s heart hammered in his chest. Had he pissed her off by calling her out of the blue?

“Heeeeey Jackie!”

“You’re lucky I got sucked into this Demonhunters marathon, otherwise I would have beat your ass for waking me up.”

“First off, I can’t believe you watch that garbage—”

“Have you seen Malek? He’s fabulous. Then there’s Ella. Basically a goddess.”

“Of course I have.” How else would he know the show was utter cheesy trash if he didn’t watch it on his own every single week? “And second, I never know if that’s a promise or a threat.”

“You know it could never be a promise for reasons beyond my control.”

Oddly, that wasn’t because she didn’t date guys, but rather one drunken conversation some months back. It started with Dane joking that he could turn into a girl if he wanted. That his gender could be as changeable as the weather. That led to unexpected paths, as drunken conversations tend to go, and resulted in the revelation that they were incompatible in far more ways. Both then and now, he hadn’t been flirting. At least not consciously. His tongue just tended to wag without his meaning it to.

“So!” He forced himself away from the topic before he could get himself into further trouble. “You got any plans tomorrow night? Say around…eight?”

“Should I be worried?”

“Why would you be worried?! It’s just question.”

“Because I’m talking to you.”

“This isn’t anything special. Just me, you, Crawford, some beers, and a movie.”

There was a silence on the other end of the line. It was likely only a few moments, but it was long enough for Dane’s pulse to quicken. She wasn’t going to get mad like Crawford always did, he tried to tell himself. This wasn’t a big deal. It was just friends. She’d have his back. She always did. But that didn’t stop the gears from churning out every possibly way this could blow up in his face.

“Dane…” she started, her tone softer than it had been. “Are you okay?”

That had not been in his long list of possibilities and it threw him completely off track. “Of course I’m okay! Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Because it’s been like six months since we last did something like that. Don’t you want to, I don’t know? Go out to a bar or something? That’s our usual way to hang out. The Prole isn’t closed is it?

The Prole, short for The Proletariat, was their typical haunt. A bar that was the center point between their respective jobs and homes, somewhere they could hang out. Typically it was just two of them, with their varied schedules. “What? No. It’s fine. I just thought…a change of pace might be good.”

“Okay. Seriously. Did someone die?”

“What?! No!”

“Spill it.”

“It’s nothing!”

“Dane Jonson. I know you and I know—”

Letting out a frustrated groan, Dane squeezed his eyes shut. “Stupid family stuff,” he finally said. “Something stupid from my mom, waving around Dillon’s latest promotion.” His older brother was an accountant of some sort, and his mother loved flaunting his success across social media. It was never without jabs at her middle child and how he was some sort of failure for his life choices.

“So when are we meeting up?”

That was sudden. “Tomorrow. At Crawford—”

“Wait. Hold up. You got his okay though, right?”

“Yeah, of course. What kind of idiot do you think I am?” Then before she could get a word out, “Don’t answer that.” Okay, so he hadn’t gotten his full authorization, it was contingent on Jackie’s agreement. But if she agreed then it wouldn’t matter, right?

“Fine. Eight o’clock. You’d better be there.”

“Would I miss this?”

“This is you we’re talking about.”

“YES! I’ll be there.” It wasn’t his fault that he was so often late. Sometimes there were things he needed to care of. 

~*~

Half an hour and one wild run through the city later, Dane made it to the club where rumor suggested he worked. “Work” however was not the word he would describe to use what he did that. It was one part agonizing boredom, three parts doing whatever he wanted, and at least fifteen parts brutal torture. Metaphorically speaking. Mostly. He was only working a short shift tonight, so when he arrived the club was already in full swing. The club itself was everything his friend’s bar wasn’t. The outside tried to say it was some sort of fancy, upscale sort of establishment. Dramatic lighting made the facade glow and glint in the night. The name and logo sat above the door, a stylized snake seeming to shimmer and slither above everyone’s heads. Some sort of high end pseudo-hologram that seemed to ignore the glare of other lights.

Only in New Cork could you name something The Serpent’s Pit and people would line up to go inside.

“Hey, buddy!” Dane chirped as he bypassed the line to slip inside.

Bruno, the dark skinned man who was so wide in every direction it was a wonder that he fit through average doors, glared at him as he passed. Dane technically wasn’t supposed to use the front door unless he was in uniform. Even then, he was supposed to use the back entrance as much as possible. He just couldn’t resist the temptation to see the gathered patrons in their Saturday best on a Sunday outraged that some scrawny rat in a teeshirt was getting to skip the line.

Leaving behind the lights of the street, he slipped first into a small, low-ceiling roomed with barely enough light to see by. The holding pen, they called it. It was bordering on soundproofed, only the thumping base made it through the walls, more felt than heard. This was part of the brutal torture. Whether a side effect of spending so much time as a canine or just being a human with a few braincells left, the music of the club was like someone boxing his eardrums on a constant basis. After a few minutes, he acclimated, but that first step into the club was worse than diving into ice cold water.

With his hand on the door, he took a slow breath. Then another. And another.

His teeth grit, he shoved the door open and slipped into the wall of sound that burst through. He stepped out onto a platform that was about ten feet above the actual floor. Even on a Sunday, the ground seemed to seethe like the surface of a fleshy ocean. Sweaty bodies writhing to the music, bathed in flashing and swirling lights. Platforms and booths stuck out of the walls at odd heights, some connected by catwalks higher than where he stood. Half a dozen glass boxes seemed suspended in mid air. Men and women wearing barely more than bits of string and scraps of fabric danced inside, each with an exceptionally large snake. Even though Dane knew those scaled creatures coiling around oiled skin were fake, he found it difficult to tell. The light show masked the fact that their movements weren’t entirely natural. He found himself staring at one dancer in particular. Someone new that he’d only seen twice so far. A man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. The snake wound up one leg, sliding up his stomach, before draping over his neck. The way he moved with that thing momentarily made Dane completely forget the music was there at all. His hands gripped the railing, some part of him telling him to get moving or he would be wait, but for the life of him he couldn’t recall why being late would be a bad thing. All he could think about was the way iridescent black scales moved across deeply tanned abs.

Only when a gaggle of young women burst through the doors behind him and one of them yelled over the music to a friend on the floor below did he snap out of it. There was one very particular job requirement to be one of the Pit’s snake charmers, beyond the impossible physique and stunning looks. The dancers were required to be phenoms. The sort with mental or emotional manipulation powers. It was one of the reasons the Pit was so popular, though the patrons were not aware. The dancers created an overlapping field that encouraged the behaviors that kept a club like this in business. He spared a glance back at the dancer to find the man was staring at him. He winked at Dane, a sly smile playing over his full lips, before turning his attention to the clubbers beneath him.

“Bastard,” Dane hissed under his breath as he pushed off the railing and headed for the stairs. Thankfully, the club was built in such a way that employees didn’t have to go into that slurry of emotional manipulation. In the shadows of the platforms, a door that was nearly impossible to see without knowing it was there led to another dim hallway. After two short turns he emerged into the bowels of the club. Lighter halls that looked more like they belonged in an upscale office than a night club. Finally he came to the employee locker room, where he always stashed his uniform. He hated having to wear that thing outside the club when he didn’t have to.

He traded his typical shirt for a plain black turtleneck, which he felt should be illegal in a place like this. Next he peeled off his jeans, trading them for slim, black slacks. At least he’d argued to keep his shoes. He was fairly sure dress shoes were cruel and unusual punishment that business men inflicted on themselves to ensure they squashed anything good in their personalities. At least that explained some of the people who worked here. Finally, he slipped on the worst part. The blazer. If it was plain and black, it wouldn’t be so bad, but it wasn’t either of those things. First off, it was a garish shade of purple. More specifically, it was eggplant. That’s what the official catalog said. Who the hell wanted to wear a vegetable? The color, however, was not the worst part. The worst was that the club’s logo embroidered across the entire back of the jacket. It couldn’t just be a subtle thing at the breast pocket. It had to be over a foot and a half tall in shimmering green, black and gold. The abstracted hissing snake felt more like a target on his back than anything. Why couldn’t they be like every other club in town where the employees got to wear classy but plain clothes?

Shoving the door open, he nearly walked into someone in the hallway. Another source of metaphorical torture. Sana, who could pin him to the wall like a moth in a collector’s display with a single look. Today her hair was blue, done up in some sort of complicated array of three ponytails woven together a way that looked like it took hours to accomplish. What little remained of the sleeves of her silver, glittery shirt hung down around her arms in looped strips. A motif that carried down over her upper legs, in black straps that hung off her impossibly short skirt. As if too emphasize how little she was wearing, her boots seemed to make up for what everything else lacked. Coming up to her knee, they were all buckles and soles that must have weighed twenty pounds each. He tried to keep his eyes off the fishnet covered expanse of thigh, and where a pair of over-sized sunglasses tucked into the center of her low cut top. She glared at him, a half finished bottle of water poised halfway to her lips, painted a few shades darker than her hair.

“Sana!” He said as if greeting an old friend. Even before the words slipped out, that little voice at the back of his mind told him to keep his mouth shut. In fact, it was shouting at him. But the rest of him seemed physically incapable of heeding the blaring sirens of warning. “If I told you that you had an amazing body, would you hold it against me?”

Her glare shifted away from him as her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Please,” she said, her voice flat and faintly accented with what Dane was pretty sure was Russian. “I could kill you seventy different ways. With my pinky.” She must be in good spirits, the number was usually much higher, or the method more graphic.

“And that’s exactly why I like you!” He said before making his way down the hall and letting her finish her break in peace.

Sana was the club’s main DJ, and one of the few employees who could wear whatever she wanted. However, he was sure that it was as much a costume as anyone else in the club. He’d ran into her outside of work once and he’d barely recognized her. She looked like she should have been sipping tea in a quaint cafe, all done up a wool coat, with her hair falling loose around her face. It was a contrast that had stuck with him, and he did genuinely want to talk to her. He wanted to know who she was behind the wild clothes and wilder hair, but every time he opened his mouth around her only the most ridiculous things rolled off his tongue. Honestly, he wouldn’t blame her if she showed off just what she could do with her pinky some day.

One last obstacle. The second worst torment the club had to offer. He had to get his assignment for the night. However, he had time to prepare. The lair of that particular beast was on the completely opposite side of the club. He could take the short cut, back through the club, across under the entry platform, and straight back to the offices. Or he could take his time, following the labyrinth of hallways around the outer edge of the club.

The latter. Always the latter. Anything to put this off as long as possible. It could take up to twenty minutes this way, because it meant wading through the lines for the bathroom and the two way traffic in and out of the infamous back rooms. Navigating that mess of bodies was a necessary evil, right? Far better than facing things head on.

However, as he rounded a corner into the dim hall that led to the customer bathrooms, he nearly collided with the beast of himself.

“You’re late.”

Even back here, a corner where all of the heat of the club seemed to gather and pool, the man’s presence was so frigid it was a wonder there wasn’t frost growing on the walls. Dimitri Dohman. Assistant everything. Second in command. His sunny disposition meant he was best suited to most employee interactions. Even though he was slightly shorter than Dane, he still managed to peer down his sharp nose at him. Those round glasses didn’t do anything to soften anything. Dane was surprised the man’s pale blonde hair was merely swept to the side in soft curve rather than plastered down so no strand could be out of place. Today he wore a shirt so glaringly red the color was evident even in the gloom of the hallway, his white tie by contrast seemed to glow like a ghost, picking up some stray UV light from the club just beyond the next turn.

“I’m not late!” Dane squawked before he could stop himself. “I traded for Benny’s shift!”

With a sigh, Dimitri tapped his datapad, the soft glow illuminating his angular features from beneath. Dane was fairly certain if he were to smile, that pinched face would shatter like glass. “Benny’s shift started…” he tapped a few places on the pad, before lifting only his eyes to Dane’s face. “…half an hour ago.”

“I was hear half an hour ago!” He said, knowing that wasn’t true.

“You report to me at the start of your shift. That’s when you start. Not when you walk through the door.”

“Come on! You know how long it takes to get around this place! And you! You’re always—” he swallowed the words before he said anything insulting about the way the man seemed to lurk around every corner. “—so hard to find,” he finished a moment too late.

“This is your last warning,” Dimitri said as he lowered the datapad. “If you’re late again, there will be repercussions.” Dane opened his mouth to make a snide remark about stern lectures, but Dimitri cut him off. “Any not by my hand.”

Dane’s blood ran cold. It was one thing to deal with Dimitri, who was as friendly as jagged ice. However, the man they all answered to made Dimitri look utterly tame. Clearing his throat, Dane managed to say “Understood,” though his mouth suddenly felt incredibly dry.


	3. Chapter 3

After the last ten days, Crawford wanted nothing more than to sleep. Dane’s little scheme seemed to have not panned out. Nearly a full day had passed without so much as a text from his friend. On the rare occasions that Dane planned something, he’d spam Crawford’s phone all day, making sure he didn’t forget. Sometimes Crawford wondered if Dane did that to remind himself more than anyone else, as no one could need that many reminders for any reason. Without a wall of nonsense on his phone when he finally rolled out of bed that afternoon, he didn’t even think about the supposed movie night. He just went about his day as if it had never happened.

Bed, however, was a loose term. Though he had lived in the small apartment for years, he never bothered to get anything that actually resembled a bed. Instead he slept on a ratty old couch with a fabric that hadn’t been seen in the last three decades. The middle sagged and the cushions no longer fit right, but it served as something to lay on that wasn’t the floor. That was about all he needed. He also hadn’t bothered to get things like dressers or shelves. Blankets and clothes lay in vague piles on the floor, punctuated with pizza and takeout boxes. His TV sat on several stacked up milk crates. In the corner beside the TV sat the only items that he gave any real care to. A guitar in a case covered in band stickers, a small amp to plug the instrument into, and a set of large headphones for when he didn’t want the amp to be heard.

They sat under a visible layer of dust.

Crawford finished jamming frozen pizzas into his freezer, which constituted most of his groceries for the week. That and the case of beer sitting the counter. However, that was more for the next two days rather than the whole week. Peeling two cans out of the box, he moved over to the couch and dropped into it’s faded, worn, creaking cushions. He waved his hand vaguely at the screen across the small room and it flickered to life.

The news droned on as he set to unlacing his boots. Weather and traffic. Things that didn’t much matter to him. As he pried off his left boot, the pretty blond reporter came back to the screen to discuss serious matters. Something about recent movements in the government to crack down on sexual predators. Before they could cut to the self-important politicians spouting their usual rhetoric, he waved his hand again and the channel changed. Some sort of action show with people in brightly colored leather suits fighting each other. He didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t the news.

He checked the soles of his boots, making sure they were still intact. They were wearing thin, but he still had time to find something else. The last thing he needed was holes in his boots when the winter rains started. Setting them aside, he shrugged out of his sweatshirt. That didn’t require inspection. He already knew it was full of holes. Most of them crudely stitched closed, or held with safety pins. He’d started to decorate it with patches, but he ran out of patience after three. Well, technically two. The large one that covered the back was Dane and Jackie’s doing. A long time ago when they thought the instrument in the corner was their ticket to somewhere better.

Stretching out on the couch, Crawford opened one of the cans he’d dragged in from the kitchen. The show on TV exploded in color as two overpowered phenoms in stupid outfits clashed. Everyone knew powers didn’t work like that. Even the firestarters couldn’t do something that epic. No earthshaker could tear down a building on their own. No illusionist could change the perceptions of a district, let alone an entire city. Leave it to TV writers to fill kids’ heads with this kind of nonsense. Thinking they could become larger than life heroes just because some stupid show said they could.

Eventually the show shifted into something just as ridiculous that Crawford paid even less attention to, as both of his beers were gone and he didn’t feel like getting off the couch. While staring at the TV and letting the noise of people fighting monsters that looked like wads of tar brought to life, he started to drift off. Somewhere between the cheesy reveal of the villain and the forced romantic subplot, he must have drifted off to sleep because he was suddenly standing on the street outside. The dark sky, heavy with clouds, glowed a dull orange, reflecting the fires from across the river. At his feet, cracks reached out like spiderwebs. The one directly before him began to widen. He tried to close it, his hands reaching for the stone as if it were a wound he could some how hold shut. From the fissure, thick black ooze began to swell out in vile bubbles. Limbs erupted from the surface, hauling a disgusting, bloated form that squeezed through the crack. A mouth split open like a knife wound, a head swelling out behind it like a rapidly growing pustule. It’s thick, dripping voice hissed out the same words it always said. Words that shook Crawford to his core as he watched the thing growing taller and taller. It didn’t always look like this. Sometimes it was just a man on the street. Sometimes the words were carried on the wind. Sometimes it was a beast with horns, or a lion made of shadow with eyes that burned.

“You can’t hide him forever,” the colossal beast spat out. A misshapen limb reached for Crawford. Burning, sticky fingers wrapped around his throat. “You can’t hide him forever!” Crawford’s pulse roared in his ears. The ground around him tore open as if by a beast’s claws. Metal and stone, shrieking and grinding a cacophony, debris rising around them as if ignoring gravity. He beat at the searing slime that gripped him, ignoring the pain in his hands.

The noise, the pain, the fear. It all hit a wall. For a moment everything floated in silence, before he was awake.

As he opened his eyes, the dream faded to mere wisps. So much chaos reduced to hazy memory. Reality came back to him in pieces. The TV was still on, the show having changed again. It was still overblown, over dramatic, over emotional nonsense. Only then did he realize what had woken him.

A droning buzzer.

Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he pushed himself up from the couch, trying to remember how to operate his limbs. Some how he managed to get to the intercom by the door without breaking anything.

“What?” he growled, hitting the button to kill the sound.

There was brief silence on the other end. “You forgot.”

“I didn’t forget shit,” he barked, not quite registering the voice.

“So he lied. That little shit.”

Jackie. Shit. He didn’t bother saying anything else. He just hit the other button to unlock the door downstairs. He unlocked the deadbolt on his own door. On his way back to the couch, he picked up his phone. It was after eight already. Though he couldn’t recall quite when he’d settled on the couch, it had to have been over two hours before. It felt like he’d slept for all of ten minutes, in which he’d been dragged behind a truck. He hated those dreams, even though he could never remember them.

He sat on his couch, with his feet up on the cheap table that was full of makeshift ashtrays and empty beer cans as door opened. She carried three large pizzas in front of her. That might seem like a lot for such a small gathering, but Dane was likely to eat half of that on his own.

“Just to make sure we’re clear, you’re a goddamn slob,” she declared as she moved into the cramped room.

“You think I care?” Crawford said. He used one foot to knock some of the cans and food wrappers onto the floor to make room for the pizza boxes.

“Not really.” She planted her hands on her hips, taking in the space as if Dane could be lurking in one of the corners. Not for the first time Crawford saw just how much she stood out in his dingy cave of an apartment. Even in her most lazy, casual clothes she looked more put together than he could ever manage. Today her dark hair was a spherical cloud around her head. Her dark skin reflected back the colors of the TV beside her, casting her in rapidly changing blues and pinks. She wasn’t as broad as Crawford, but she wasn’t slender either. Solid was the word that came to mind. She wore a tanktop that fell open along the sides. It tucked into what appeared to be sweatpants that would have been too big even on Crawford. But they’d been rolled, tucked, and tied in such a way that the seemed to stay on her frame just fine. “I’m guessing he didn’t even bother to show up.”

“Didn’t even tell me it was happening.”

Her head slowly swiveled back to him, full lips pressing into an impossibly thin line. “He told me you’d okay’ed it.”

“What I told him was that I’d only do it if you were okay with it.”

She let out a growl. “I’m going to to hold him out the window by his ankles!” She dropped down onto the couch and threw open one of the pizza boxes.

“We’re only five floors up. He’d probably survive the fall.”

“Even if I drop him on his head?”

“Thickest part of his body. Nothing gets through. I doubt even that would crack it.”

“Fair point.”

Crawford reached for his own slice of pizza. At least it was from somewhere good and not one of the cheap frozen things filling his freezer.


	4. Chapter 4

Jackie finished off another size of pizza, watching the latest installment of a show with criminals hopping around time. She hadn’t seen any of it for the last few seasons, so it barely made any sense. At least this one didn’t try to explain the weird science and technology with phenom powers. They never got those things right.

It was nearing ten, and Dane hadn’t showed. She thought about texting him, but that seemed like far too much effort. Let him miss out on the pizza and company. She knew the guilt would crush him, but maybe it was a lesson he needed to learn.

Beside her, Crawford snored softly, his head leaned back at an awkward angle on the back of the couch. His shaggy mop of red hair fell in his eyes. She could jab him awake, so she wasn’t staring up his round nose or into his open mouth, but that was typically a bad idea. He tended to come out of sleep swinging, no matter who did the waking. Besides, she figured he could use the rest. He didn’t exactly have the most stable situation, so she figured she could let him get a few minutes of rest.

Like she was one to talk.

Her gaze turned to the apartment around her. She’d once tried to do something to make it not such a mess. She needed to get rid of an old dresser and offered it to him. She got lectured about pity and charity and a few other things she hadn’t quite followed. That was when a few things clicked into place. It was why she said things like the way she’d greeted him. He liked honesty. He liked people who were up front and blunt. She had offered the dresser under the honest but flimsy excuse of just needing to get rid of it. Perhaps if she’d said “You need to take care of your shit, I’m sick of looking at it” he would have taken it. Or maybe he would have slammed the door in her face. It was hard to tell sometimes.

Reaching for another slice of pizza, she heard something down on the street. No, it couldn’t be what she thought. Not at this hour. But it continued. A high pitched bark. More a series of sharp yips. Right under Crawford’s window. Anyone who spent time in the city would just think it was an irritating dog. But sheer exposure told her just what that sound belonged to.

A coyote.

“Hey,” she said, slapping Crawford’s thigh even though she knew the risk. “Wake up. He’s here.”

“Let him rot,” Crawford grumbled, adjusting his position.

“He’s going to wake the neighborhood.”

“His problem, not mine. He’s outside.”

The barking outside stopped. She figured next they’d hear the buzzer for the door.

Silence.

She waited. Maybe there was trouble outside. This wasn’t the safest neighborhood, and some strung out crackhead might decide they wanted dog for dinner. But there wasn’t anything beyond the late periodic late night traffic.

She had a slice of pizza to her lips when a hail of fists hammered the apartment door.

Crawford sat bolt upright, his eyes wide. In the illumination of the TV, Jackie could see the whites exposed completely around blue irises. His hand against hers on the couch, his fingers gripping the edge of the cushion so tight his arms trembled. No, that wasn’t from his grip.

“Hey! Wake up!” Dane called from outside the door. Only then did some of the tension fade from Crawford’s shoulders and arms.

“Leave him out there,” Crawford grumbled, laying back on the couch.

“Doesn’t your neighbor get up at like ass o’clock in the morning?” Jackie asked.

“So?”

“You know Dane’s not gonna stop for at least an hour, right?”

“So?”

“You want your neighbor’s ripping you a new asshole cause of him?”

Crawford didn’t so much reply as grunt. While he didn’t give a damn about his neighbors, she knew he’d pitch a fit if they came for him over some nonsense Dane pulled. She got to her feet and crossed the room. “Maybe we can put him to work,” she said, kicking an empty beer can out of her way. “Think we could find him a cute little maid outfit at this hour?”

“He doesn’t have the legs for it,” Crawford said, his tone still in that grumpy area of reluctantly awake.

“At least his legs aren’t pasty like yours,” Jackie said as she unlocked the door. She held the knob for a moment, listening as the pounding stopped. The moment she felt the knob rattle under her fingers, she jerked it open. The scrawny figure in question stumbled into the room, having been mid-step into shoving the door open himself.

“Hey, Jackie!” He said, standing up straight as if nothing had happened. “Sorry I’m late! I got held up. Let’s get this party started, huh?” He held out data stick to her. She was going to ask how he got it there if he’d been a furry creature not ten minutes ago, when she noticed it was on a key ring. The ring was empty, except for something clear and slimy that caught the light of the screen behind her.

“You’re disgusting,” she said, turning away from her.

Rolling his eyes, he wiped the ring on his shirt and kicked the door shut. “Oh like you haven’t touched worse. I saw you last week with…what was her name? Roxie? If you want to talk about dogs…” Dane shrugged as he moved toward the TV.

“At least she knows what to do with her tongue, unlike a—”

“If you two are gonna bitch about your sex lives,” Crawford growled, “I’m throwing you both out the goddamn window.”

“Or lack there of, in someone’s case,” Jackie added, batting her eyelashes in Dane’s direction. She knew that unlike Crawford, Dane couldn’t take a direct hit. Literally or metaphorically. However, a side jab wasn’t entirely off the table. Besides, she was feeling spiteful. His lies were going to get him into serious trouble some day, if he wasn’t careful. Far more trouble than he could handle. And if there was one thing she couldn’t deal with was being lied to. Even if it was something small, like twisting what Crawford had said to his favor. She wanted to as many jabs at him as she could.

“So,” Crawford cut in, before either one could say anything more. “Where the fuck were you?”

Dane paused in trying to find the port for the drive on the side of the TV, looking between them. An unsteady, lopsided smile split his face as he let out an even shakier laugh. “So…funny story about that…”

“I’m not laughing,” Jackie said, her tone as flat as she could manage. “You said eight.”

“You forgot we were doing this.” Crawford cut across Jackie, his tone making her seem light and chipper in comparison.

“What?!” Dane said, his voice climbing an octave, drawing the vowel out. “No…I wouldn’t—”

“Let’s prove it.” Without glancing to the side, Jackie held her hand out to Crawford. “Can I borrow your phone?” The words were barely off her lips when Crawford slapped it against her palm, already unlocked. “Let’s see…” She flipped through some messages before coming to Dane’s texts. “A bunch of gibberish…A link to a personality quiz—we both know he’s a puffer fish, don’t even try—a lame joke, a picture of yourself for some strange reason, and hmm…the last message was from two days ago.”

“That doesn’t prove anything…” Dane scoffed as he finally found the proper port.

“When was the last time you didn’t remind his about eighteen thousand times the day of one of these things?”

“That doesn’t prove anything!” Dane moved around to the front of the TV and started gesturing for it to switch to the movie.

Crawford shoved his foot onto the empty cushion of the couch, glaring up at Dane before he could try to sit down. “Where were you.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You told me eight,” Jackie added.

“So I’m a little—”

“It’s ten thirty.” Crawford pointed out.

“So where were you?” Jackie added. Something wasn’t sitting right. This wasn’t like Dane. Just like their phone call, but she doubted the jabs from his family would have carried this far. It wasn’t like him to let them railroad him like this. He’d fling the jabs right back and tell them what they could do with their demands.

“Can’t I just—”

“No.” Crawford wouldn’t budge.

Dane’s shoulders slumped, his whole narrow frame seeming to deflate. He took a slow breath, and she waited. Crawford started to say something but she shoved her hand over his mouth, his stubble like sandpaper against her palm. She could see him glaring at her out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t budge. She noticed that he didn’t bother shaking her hand off, though. She kept her gaze fixed on the standing figure. When the silence stretched until the menu of the movie finally came up she said, a bit more softly, “…Dane.”

“Osiris called me in last minute, okay?” He said, defeated.

“He’ll rip you in half if he hears you calling him that,” she warned, pulling her hand back from Crawford’s face.

“Yeah…well…” he finally dropped onto the couch as the blocking leg withdrew. “That’s only half as bad as what he gave me tonight.”

“What did he do?” She asked. Dane’s boss was a monster in his own right, ruling over that club like some kind of emperor. She was surprised he didn’t make his employees wear collars or tracking tags. Hearing that he’d finally punished Dane for any one of his transgressions led her mind to some brutal places. There were horrific rumors of what that man did once he had to deal with an employee himself. It was one of many reasons that she didn’t set foot in that club, along with that creepy little assistant of his.

“He made me clean the charmers snakes,” Dane admitted with a shudder.

“That’s it?” Crawford sneered when at the same time Jackie uttered an involuntary “Oh god.”

Those snakes were another reason she hated the club. They were a perversion of robotics, an insult to engineering. Barely a step above analog puppetry, the simple constructions ran on crude, hacked together programming to serve as something for scantily clad dances to grind against. She felt sorry for whoever had been suckered into designing or building those things.

She swatted Crawford’s shoulder for his callous response.

“What?!” He demanded.

“They’re creepy!” Dane blurted out. He slumped back against the couch and waved his hand to start the movie, finally. “And they get slimy after being in the pods all night. All of that sweat and the gallons of oil those people bathe in. Do you know how hard it is to get that stuff off plastic?”

“Okay, but why did he have you cleaning them?” Jackie pressed. “I thought it was your day off.”

“It was,” he pouted, staring at the screen. “I was late…”

“How late?”

“Half an hour…”

“That’s not too—”

“Four nights in a row.”

Jackie cringed. A slip up was one thing, but Dane was asking for trouble. Even her own boss, who was the most lenient person she’d ever met, would have words if she tried something like that.

“And three times last week,” Dane added, ducking his head as if he expected to be hit. Which Crawford promptly delivered to his shoulder.

“You’re lucky he didn’t skin you alive,” Jackie said.

“I would have preferred that!” He yelped. “I had to bleach my own hands when I was done! Do you know where those stupid dances put those things?! Places you shouldn’t put robot snakes, that’s for damn sure!”

Jackie slid her gaze to Crawford, a sly smile creeping on to her lips. He just rolled his eyes.

“Sliding all over their stupid naked bodies! It’s disgusting!” Dane continued.

“And just how many of them make you wish you could turn into a snake?” Jackie asked, which earned her a glare from Crawford.

That seemed to stop Dane’s tirade in its tracks. He firmly pressed his lips together, his eyes wide. As much as that boy lied to everyone around him, there was no one he lied to more than himself. She had no doubt that she’d convinced himself he despised every dancer in that club.

Dane seemed to realize there was pizza for the first time. He leaned over Crawford, taking the top box and pulling it into his lap. Flipping the top open, he frowned. “You could have saved some for me,” he pouted.

“Did you expect a whole one just for you?” She scoffed, as there was half the pizza still in the box.

He lifted out a piece, folding it in half so he could cram as much in his mouth as possible. “And it’s cold!” he said around a mouthful of crust and cheese.

“It’s been here for two damn hours,” Crawford growled.

As if in answer, Dane crammed another bite in, having not swallowed the first.

“You’re a pig,” Jackie said, unable to quite smother her laugh.


	5. Chapter 5

The movie proved to be Dane’s typical fare. Impossible action. Pretty people everywhere. Excuses for lots of skin. Over done light flares. Some sort of brooding main hero who ends up sweaty in a torn shirt at least twice. Crawford couldn’t tell if this one was supposed to be an epic military something-or-other or some sort of spy mission thing. Then again, he wasn’t exactly paying attention. Dane and Jackie had ran their mouths over most of it, and it wasn’t long before Crawford found himself dozing off again. It was probably the pizza he’d stuffed into his stomach. Then again, for as much as he’d eaten, Dane had at least three times as much. Together Crawford and Jackie had managed approximately half a pizza each in the two hours they’d had to hang out. In the last hour, Dane had eaten as much as the them both, and then some.

Crawford ignored it as Dane flopped across his lap to check the final box for any remnants.

“You’ve got to tell me your secret,” Jackie demanded.

“What secret?”

“To putting a portal in your stomach. Seriously. Where are you storing it all? Your legs?! Wait, no. Those sticks couldn’t hold anything.”

“I’ll have you know these sticks as you call them could kick your ass any day.”

Jackie let out sharp laugh. “Yeah! I’ll bet!”

“Well, you’d have to catch me to prove it wrong,” Dane said as he fell back into his spot on the couch.

“You’re a goddamn coward is what you are!”

“No! I’m smart. And fast. I get out of the way before anyone thinks to throw a punch.”

“And yet you keep running your mouth, inviting fists right into your face.”

Their banter carried on over the movie, yet they both seemed to be following the plot. Or maybe they’d both seen it before. Crawford could never quite tell if either one was capable of actually listening while their were running their mouths. Well, Jackie at least knew when to hold back. Dane seemed immune to the concept.

“Well…” Jackie said as she extracted herself from the couch. “…I gotta get going.”

“You’re going to miss the best part!” Dane demanded over the sound of frantic gun fire and people yelling. “You gotta know the truth about who he’s fighting!”

“I’ve got something I gotta do tomorrow. I can’t be here all night.”

“Sleep in!”

“Some of us have day jobs.”

Before either one could say another word, a siren split the air. It overpowered the gunfight in the movie.

Crawford shot up from the couch, his heart slamming against his ribs. His hand slapped the couch, reaching for his phone, ignoring the demands of his two friends. Where the hell was his phone?!

“How is 911 calling you?” Dane demanded, shoving the blinding screen under Crawford’s nose.

Without offering an explanation, Crawford slammed his thumb onto the answer button and brought the phone up to his ear. “Jo?” He said, some of that blind panic coming out in his voice. “What is it?!”

What Dane missed had been that the name of the caller had been set to 911, not the number. Not that it mattered, the only reason this number would be calling him was the most dire of emergencies.

“He got picked up in the park,” the harried voice said on the other end of the line as Crawford waved to mute the TV. However his lack of care instead shut it off completely. “I can keep this quiet for an hour, maybe two. But you gotta come get him.”

It took a moment to find his voice again, swallow hard as his hear seemed intent on climbing out of his throat while his stomach rapidly found its way to the floor. An hour. Even if he ran to the train, this late at night it would take too long to get there. He was just lucky it had been in her precinct and not further up town. Or across the river. He dragged through his options. His thoughts flew like a swarm of bees in his head, while he was mired knee deep in quicksand. “…an hour,” he repeated, trying to get his bearings.

“He’s causing a scene,” she explained. “I’ve got to get him out of holding and fast. You know what that means.”

Processing him. High profile. Higher ups sweeping it under the rug with a phone call.

“Give me your keys,” Jackie said, thrusting her hand at Dane.

Without question, he slapped the keys into her hand. “Come on, big guy,” this was directed at Crawford. “Get your boots on.”

“What?” Crawford said, having forgotten they were even there. Then it all clicked to place. He addressed Jo, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” And hung up.

~*~

The car reeked. It always did. Mildew and motor oil mingled with that unmistakable smell that could only be described as “old car.” As if the sweat from a thousand hot summer afternoons baked right into the fake leather and seeped out as it cracked and flaked. As much as Crawford hated Dane’s driving, that smell always brought with it an incongruous sense of surety and safety. A guaranteed escape. Dane bought the car when they were both still in high school, so it had served as the backdrop of many stages of his life. From sneaking out in the middle of the night, to moving into his own apartment, to late night excursions like this one. How the damn thing was still running, he didn’t know. It seemed like it should be barely liming along on two wheels while held together with duct tape and a prayer. Even as they flew down the sparsely populated streets in the dark, the old hatchback sounding like it might rattle apart on the next turn, some of Crawford’s panic drained away. They would get there in time. It would be alright.

Some of that came from the fact that for once Dane wasn’t driving. The owner of the car was crammed into the back seat that had negative leg room, as he gripped the twin headrests of the front bucket seats. Jackie steered the car as if they were on a lazy Sunday drive. Not rocketing around at eighty miles an hour. Crawford sat in the passenger seat, watching the buildings blur by in a strobing pattern of light and shadow in a vain effort to not stare at the clock. They would make it in time.

“You mean to tell me,” Dane said, shoving his head between them, “All this time you could drive like this?! You’re not a complete grandma?!”

“Unlike you,” she said, her eyes fixed intently on the road ahead of her, “I don’t have the kind of cash that makes speeding tickets go away.”

“Hey! I’ve only had three!” He barked.

“This year,” she added.

“Could we focus on driving?” Crawford growled. He could usually ignore their bickering, but right now their words were like nails on a chalk board. He just wanted them to shut up, as if the energy of their chatter could be converted into something that could propel them faster. That, and he didn’t want to think about the real reason Dane managed to avoid losing his car. They were heading into the very heart of that particular den, and the last thing he needed was to start thinking about threats that lay outside the mission in front of them.

Jo Amaro, old enough to be his mother and veteran officer of the New Castor Police Department, a detective in the fourteenth precinct. Though she’d never mention it, there was a reason she didn’t hold much in the way of rank, and one of the reasons she was still stuck in the worst district of the city. It was the same reason she needed him there so soon. She refused to bow to the corruption that had rooted so deeply in much of the city, especially among the police and the government. They couldn’t get rid of her, but they could make her life a living hell. Crawford often wondered whether or not she held on out of sheer spite, or if it was just her own form of rebellion. Perhaps a bit of both. She covered the night shift in the precinct that covered the southern end of the park, a swath of sleazy strip clubs and bars that made The Red Clover look upscale, several blocks of cheap apartments, and a decent piece of the industrial sector that buffered the city from the docks. It was the absolute gutter of the city, and a place his brother tended to wash up.

There was a very tiny sliver of Crawford’s mind, a tiny glimmer of something that once was, that wondered if she stayed in that place for them. But no two strangers in this city of two and a half million could be worth staying in that place. Even if she was last remaining shred of a defense Crawford had left, it was politics that kept her there. Given half a chance, she’d escape and leave them to the wolves.

Jackie slowed the car as they approached the police station. There was no reason to go screeching into the parking lot, as much as Crawford wanted to demand she step on it.

They passed the building that looked like a relic from another time. Like someone had dropped an overgrown cinder block among the looming, neon sky scrapers made of sleek steel and glass. The boxy, drab structure stood only three stories tall, hunkered down against the street. Only from far too much experience did Crawford know that it continued down several floors, spreading wider than the exposed structure itself. Though it seemed dwarfed by the buildings around it, Crawford couldn’t help the sense it was looming over them as Jackie found a place to park. Those walls held dark memories stretching back as far as he could remember. An eight year old boy being asked to tell the story of the same night over and over when no one would tell him why his mother wasn’t there.

It didn’t matter that had been a different building on another island. They were all the same.

The three of them climbed out of the car with varying degrees of grace. Crawford didn’t bother waiting for Dane to extract himself from the back seat as he headed for the door. As much as he dreaded this place, no horrors of the past would keep him from the reason he’d come here.

First, he had to tackle the gatekeepers. A pair of bored looking deputies stationed behind a complicated contraption. They both sat up when Crawford shoved the door open.

“Whoa there, fella,” the large man who apparently lived the donut stereotype held out his hand as if that could stop Crawford. “Visiting hours are long over. Why don’t you turn around and—”

“Detective Jo Amaro. Take it up with her,” He growled.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” The woman beside him said. Her pony tail was pulled back with such severity it seemed her hair had been painted on to her scalp.

“She called me,” he growled.

Before he could say anything more, the door behind him opened and both offers stiffened as if they were expecting trouble.

“We’re here to pick someone up,” Jackie offered.

“Yeah, we’re here for—”

Even though Jackie was wearing shoes that looked like slippers, when her heel came down on Dane’s toes, he very quickly shut his mouth.

“…my brother,” Crawford said, glaring at Dane. “Amaro can give you all the details if you wanna waste all that time.”

The two officers shared a look, something passing between them that Crawford didn’t have the patience or inclination to understand. Finally the woman sighed and said in a dead pan, “Please remove all metal objects, belts, wallets, jewelry, shoes, keys, and places them in the bins. Proceed through when given the signal.”

“Since when?!” Dane demanded.

“Since you’re not worth using a full body scan.”

Crawford was already unlacing his boots. He didn’t have the time to waste arguing. He dropped them both in a bin with loud thud. Then he stripped off his sweatshirt, and pulled out his wallet. By the time he had that all removed, the portly deputy had moved around to the other side the the machine. Though he was clearly ready, he made Crawford stand before the archway, his his stocking feet and teeshirt, in a cavernous anteroom that was probably impressive before all of this equipment had been shoved into it. Marble, as it turned out, was not exactly a warm material.

Even after waving Crawford through, he was left standing on the rubber mat in the arch way, watching the man stare at something on the frame of the machine. Only when he was satisfied with some result that Crawford couldn’t see, did he wave him through. But on the other side, his items weren’t free from their own scanner just yet. The woman was meticulously inspecting each individual pin in his sweatshirt to measure their lethality. Or at least Crawford could see no other reason for taking so long.

From where Crawford waited, he could finally see what the fat deputy had been watching for. A monitor showed the readouts for the person in the arch way. Despite what the woman had said, it showed meticulous detail of the figure being scanned, first in full body, then panning down the semi-transparent form, highlight anything that could be possibly suspicious. It seemed to list everything from dental fillings to lint in pockets, listing materials and makeups of every tiny anomaly.

Any other night, Crawford would have made a scene and risked arrest just for the waste of time. There was no reason they should have done anything other than go straight through the scanner. But not tonight. As soon as he woman released the bin, he grabbed it. He threw on his sweatshirt, shoved his wallet into his pocket, and grabbed his boots.

“We’ll find you downstairs,” Jackie said from her position in the scanner, where the guard seemed to be taking far longer than he had with Crawford or Dane. There were two possible reasons, either of which Crawford would have willing made the guard eat his boot.

Crawford made his way deeper into the dismal building, carrying one boot in each hand with his unzipped sweatshirt fluttering in his wake. He knew the way down to the holding cells far better than he should. Even with half the station closed up for the night. He passed through the elevator bay to the stairwell beyond. The elevators too too long, and the stairs meant skipping an additional check point. It wasn’t as invasive as the front door, but he still lacked the patience for it. He ran down two flights of stairs, heels slamming into cement and metal, hard enough to send jolts up into his skull. It was something to focus on as he twisted through the vertical shaft of sickly green light.

He emerged into a cramped floor that didn’t want you to forget it was underground. The ceiling was low enough for him to touch if he reached, with bare fluorescent bulbs overhead. A mesh of metal painted with flaking white paint served as the final obstacle waiting between him and Amaro. He pushed into the tiny closet of space between matching mesh doors. A third wall was crowded with various notices and warnings that no one ever read. The fourth held a thick glass panel, behind which sat a half awake bald man.

Crawford tapped on the glass with one of his boots, and the man jumped awake. He squinted at Crawford and muttered something that didn’t make it through the bullet proof barrier. Then he added “…guess if you made it passed Lancaster, I’m redundant.” He nodded to the boot in Crawford’s hand and hit a button that he couldn’t see.

The door to Crawford’s left buzzed and swung open.

It was no relief that he’d made it inside. This was just the first trial. There were at least two more to come, and that would just get him home.

Down here, sounds echoed strangely. A dozen muttering voices echoed off the walls, creating a buzz of sound. The way it mingled with the smells of piss, stale alcohol, and poorly diluted bleach, it brought to mind what the asylums of history may have been like. Over crowded and poorly kept. Staff stretched too thin, and most of the inmates didn’t even need to be there in the first place. The only difference was the uniform the staff wore.

Finally he rounded a corner to find Amaro sitting behind a desk, half hidden behind layer after layer of documents projected by the data pad on her desk. Seeing him approach, she swept them aside into a cluster at one side of her desk.

“You got here faster than I expected,” she said, getting to her feet. She stood a few inches shorter than him, with narrows shoulders and wide hips. Everything about her seemed to be crafted to be inoffensively sensible. Chin length brown hair tucked behind one ear, a short sleeve blouse and dark slacks. A plain clothes detective, stuck down here with the holding cells. They were certainly sending her a message that she refused to take. “But I’m glad you did.”

She moved around the desk, finally noticing what he was holding. “I forgot Lancaster was up there tonight,” she said, a hint of apology in her words. “I would have warned you.”

“Could’ve been worse,” he grumbled. Anyone else, he may have torn their head off for something like that. But not Amaro. Not with what she was doing for him.

“I can give you a minute to put those back on,” she said, taking her keys out of her pocket.

“Let’s just get him out.” He could worry about shoes when he was out of this place.

She just nodded, leading him deeper into the labyrinth of low ceilings and too many desks. A few other detectives were at work down here, staring blearily at glowing displays. Some of them noticed as they walked through, eyes tracking him. Even at this hour it would be impossible to keep this quiet for long.

The chaos of voices grew louder as the passed through another pair of secured gates. Beyond stretched the holding cells. General holding cells for people waiting to be processed. Crawford knew all too well how they decided who to put on which side. The left was for the drunks, junkies, and vagrants. People who needed to dry out or sleep it off. The right housed the more violent types. People who would filter into the system and move on to more secure pastures. It was meant for the genuine, violent criminals. Real threat-to-society types. But usually it was idiot teenagers with their over sized jeans around their thighs waiving guns they had no idea how to use. Crawford knew this system because when he was on the other side, there was frequently a debate for which side he belonged in. It wasn’t his fault he’d sucker punched a pretty boy cop one day. And a few others that he only half remembered.

The reason he wasn’t in an orange jumpsuit was the same reason he needed to get this done. And fast.

Though the two halves of the holding cells looked identical, there was one distinct difference. On the right, the violent side, a more powerful dampener had been installed. How it worked, Crawford had no idea. It was supposed to create a field that stopped any and all powers, no matter the type. It must be in the ceiling somewhere, because Crawford had never found a sign of it. If it existed at all. However, on the left side, it was plain to see. Two old contraptions were bolted to the ceiling, bathing the space in a sickly light. Unlike the powerful variety, this one could only stop physical manifestations. It kept drunks from causing too much trouble. It did nothing against mental powers. And for people like Dane, who could only change themselves some how, it made things more difficult but not impossible. He and Dane found this out about five years before, celebrating Crawford’s twenty first birthday. If Amaro had been on duty that night, she would have been able to warn the guard, who was incredibly confused at finding a dog in the cell. Someone hadn’t told the rookie about the gap in the dampener’s security.

Tonight, the violent side was rather sparse. As the passed, it seemed to be more overflow from the drunk tank, which seemed to be packed beyond capacity. Several people were pressed against the bars, some huddled on the floor, others using the bars to keep themselves upright. Not seeing Donavin in the sparse population on the right side, Crawford was about to have a few words with Amaro. She knew better than to cram Donavin into a packed cell. No one should be packed in that tight. It was inhumane, even for a bunch of drunks. Before he could put that rising ire into something resembling words, feeling his blood starting to boil, the moved further inside. The population thinned out as approached the far end, creating a barren space around a lone figure sitting on the cot fixed to the wall.

Donavin made Dane look well fed, a shirt two sizes too large almost two sizes too big falling in loose folds around him. Dull brown hair, cut close to his scalp, stuck up at odd angles as if he’d just woken up. He slumped back against the wall, staring blankly at the masses treating him as if he were a rabid dog on a quickly fraying leash. Yet he sat utterly motionless, as if asleep with his eyes open.

“You gotta get me outta here!” one man slurred, filthy fingers gripping the bars as he pressed his face between them. Rotten teeth peeked through a scraggly beard. “He’s one of them freaks! Gonna infect us all!”

“He knows things!” another man crowed. He was huddled on the floor, the first man leaning over him. “Things no one but a moxie could! He’s gettin’ into our heads! Planting things! Stealing memories!”

Amaro let out an audible breath. These two were frequent fliers of this particular venue. They were often found wandering the parks and popular corners of the city, spouting their own particular brand of anti-phenom filth. It was usually accompanied with massive signs declaring them abominations or detailing their sinful ways. Frequently, a bullhorn made an appearance. They accused anyone and everyone being a phenom, harassing anyone they could. They were never held for long, because in the end no one gets hurt, and something about rights and freedom of speech.

Amaro just went to the door against the wall and set to fitting the proper key into the lock. As if the sound of the keys were an activation command, Donavin moved. Several of the other detainees flinched as if it were the first sign of an attack. Crawford could hear the two idiots babbling, as the pressed back into the dozen or so drunks for shelter. But Donavin just moved to the door, dull green eyes cast down as Amaro pulled the door open. Only once it closed again with Donavin on the other side did the inmates begin to spread out.

As the three of them moved back toward the guard station, the crowd inside moved like water around a stone, keeping a wide berth from them, or more specifically around Donavin. Cautious eyes followed them from both sides, as if wanting to be sure they saw the monster leave. The monster who continued to stare at the floor between Crawford and the older officer, arms limp at his sides and seemingly unaware of anyone else in the room.

Among the growing murmurs as they approached the door they’d entered through, Crawford made out one distinct word. Part of a question he couldn’t make out. But one single word floated out of the buzz, hitting him like a knife in the ribs.

“Stoneface.”

His stocking feet came to a stop, as if suddenly locked to the floor. He may have passed this way with blood boiling, but now it ran with ice. He’d misheard, a bunch of drunken and strung out idiots didn’t know what they were talking about.

One breath, then another. He managed to pick up his foot again, and stepped out the door where Amaro was waiting. Her thin lips pressed into an even thinner line, a crease visible between here eyebrows. He just tore his gaze from her face, and fixed it on his brother ahead of him.

“There you are!” Dane shouted, his voice too loud in the strange hush of the late night crew, as they emerged from the twisting halls. Jackie sat in Amaro’s chair, her feet propped up on the desk. Dane had been sitting backwards in a chair across from her, but now he stood with one knee pressed to the seat.

“Everything go alright?” Jackie asked in a more level tone, pulling her sandaled feet off the desk.

“Can you two do me a favor?” Amaro said, looking over the small gathering. “Take Donavin upstairs, while Crawford and I take care of the release forms?”

“Relea—” Dane started to protest.

“Of course,” Jackie said, cringing. “We’ll give you a moment take care of things.”

“We don’t have to get frisked on our way out or anything, do we?” Dane demanded.

“No. Only on the way in,” Amaro explained.

“Come on, kiddo,” Jackie said, moving up beside Donavin. “Let’s get you out of this hellhole.”

“And back to the fresh stench of the city,” Dane added, fall in behind Jackie and Donavin as the moved for the elevators.

Crawford couldn’t help but notice the way Jackie positioned herself. It never seemed intentional, but she seemed to constantly keep herself between Donavin and Dane. An ever-present barrier. “You really are an idiot, you know that?” She asked Dane.

“I do not want to know what that lady is capable of.”

As their banter was swallowed by the impossible geometry of the subterranean space, Amaro moved around behind her desk. Crawford turned Dane’s chair the right way around and dropped into it. Finally he was able to start the process of putting his boots back on.

“You know I can’t keep this up much longer,” Amaro said as she sat down. She never had the patience for soft lead-ins. At least not that he’d seen. “Things are getting…complicated.”

“More complicated than being stuck in this shithole of shitholes?” Crawford asked without looking up as he yanked on his laces.

“They’re pushing through changes that are going to tie my hands.”

“You mean he’s pushing them through.”

Amaro nodded, her hands folded on the desk. “It’s going to close a loophole that lets these things fall through the cracks unseen.”

He fussed with the laces. They weren’t cooperating. Or maybe it was his fingers. The simple act of tying the bow a mystery as the weight of those words settled over him. “Stoneface.” He growled between clenched teeth.

“You heard that.”

Stoneface. Also known as Senator Leon Stone. One of the loudest voices in the government. Calling for reforms left and right. Specifically in areas such as police regulations, cracking down on crime, and harsher punishments for sexual predators. Generally favored by the public. Known for being stubborn and stern in all things. Also, Donavin’s biological father. Crawford’s step father. The man they both very much needed to stay hidden from.

“It’s not just this,” Amaro continued. “I’ve put in my request to transfer to West Bank to get out ahead of it. It’s still months off, but if I’m still here when it hits…”

“Nothing left to stop them finally getting rid of you.”

Amaro just nodded.

Calling for police regulations was a smokescreen. It sounded proper in the speeches and on paper. It often even held up under scrutiny. Everything looked proper. But while he was closing certain gaps, he was opening up others. Because Senator Stone owned the police force of the city. At least in the districts that mattered. Crawford didn’t exactly how he did it. Whether through blackmail, pay offs, or just making sure the most vile people were brought on. Whatever the method, those that he didn’t directly own were still very much in favor of him. There were still a few hold outs, like Amaro, but none were anywhere near as active about it. Why she’d chosen this, he didn’t know. Maybe it was just because she hated what the man was doing and wanted her own revenge against him. All he knew was that she’d been a rookie assigned to helping a scared five year old Donavin the day they’d lost their mother. Ever since she seemed to be an ever present force in their lives.

“As I said, that’s still months away. Until then, there’s a more pressing matter.”

Crawford gave up on trying to tie his boot and switched to fitting his foot in to the other one. “What’s that?”

“He’s closing in on you both.”

Crawford’s fingers slipped, his foot slamming into the desk.

“He came through here a few weeks ago, to rattle a few cages. I don’t think he knows how often your brother ends up here, but he was making threats. It sounded like he was planning to hire a specialist. Someone to find either one of you.”

“Donavin’s safe,” Crawford said, giving up on his boots entirely.

“And you?”

“I can handle myself.” It sounded inadequate, even to his own ears. He tried to find a way to sit in the chair that didn’t make him feel like his skin didn’t fit quite right. He ended up with his elbows propped up on the arms, fingers curled around his left wrist, his hands resting against his stomach. It didn’t help. “He’s not gonna pull anything with me.”

She didn’t need to say anything. He knew this wasn’t going away. Once Senator Stoneface set his mind to something, he wasn’t going to let up until he achieved his goal. If he hadn’t given up after five years, nothing would slow him down.

“Take some precautions,” she said, anyway. “He won’t be beating your door down tomorrow, but it’s only a matter of time. You knew this couldn’t last forever.”

Crawford’s fingers tightened around his wrist, digging into the tendons. Donavin was an adult. This was supposed to be over. They were supposed to be free and safe. But there was no hiding from one of the most powerful men in the city. He couldn’t look the reason in the eye, he couldn’t focus on it. Instead, it sat in his stomach like a rock. Weighing him down. Making him sick. “I can handle myself,” he finally said, shoving himself up out of the chair.

“Crawford—” Amaro was on her feet, reaching for him.

“Enjoy West Bank,” he snapped. “I hear it’s real quiet over there.” He stormed off toward the stairs, the tips of his laces click against the stone floor in his wake.


End file.
